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Bevin Boy Ken honoured at last
16/ 4/2008
WHEN Kenneth Wych was conscripted he expected to be defending his country on the front lines.
But instead he was given a hard hat and sent to work down a coal mine.
Some 48,000 Bevin Boys aged 18 to 25 were recruited during the second world war to work as miners when Britain was hit by severe coal shortages. Many miners had been sent off to fight, leaving no-one to work the seams.
Nicknamed Bevin Boys after Minister of Labour and National Service Ernest Bevin, many were pilloried by servicemen coming back from the war, who thought they’d got the soft option. But now they have finally been recognised with a special medal.
Only a few thousand are now left. Mr Wych, of Enfield Court, Hyde, said getting his medal was ‘wonderful’. Now 83, he had never been near a mine before when he was sent to Markham Main Colliery, near Doncaster.
"I was frightened, it was terrible. Conditions were atrocious. You were up to your knees in water the whole time. You didn’t worry about exhaustion, you just had to carry on," he told us. "The miners took years to learn the job but we were supposed to take three weeks. They looked after us well though and taught us a lot of things. I liked the miners, they were good, solid fellows."
He said when he came out of mining at the end of the war and went back to work as a printer, he faced prejudice from some of the men who were sent to fight in the war.
"We got this jealousy but after a while they realised it wasn’t our fault," he added.
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